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Rob Ford crack scandal: Transcript of Doug Ford’s statement

An uncut, complete version of Councillor Doug Ford's statement to the media at City Hall on Wednesday.(David Cooper)

By thestar.com

Wed., May 22, 2013

This is a transcript of Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford’s 9-minute, 42-second speech at City Hall on Wednesday. Interjected questions from reporters appear in italics.

Doug Ford: “First off, I’m here today because you’ve been asking me for my comments. I’m here to give you my comments. I’m not speaking for the mayor; the mayor is my brother, I love him and he’ll speak for himself.”

(When?)

Ford: “He has already addressed these allegations three times, on Friday. I don’t know how much more he can say. My brother is an honest and hard-working man with integrity, a man who has dedicated his life to serving others.

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“He is the people’s mayor. Never has the mayor been so accessible or cared so much for the big issues facing residents. His attention to the needs of constituents is what has made Rob Ford mayor of Toronto. Now our mayor faces yet another accusation, an accusation driven by reporting from a news outlet that has proven they would do anything to stop the mayor’s agenda. Rob’s is telling me these stories are untrue, that these accusations are ridiculous, and I believe him.

Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford reads a statement to journalists at city hall on Wednesday. (Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Toronto City Councillor Doug Ford reads a statement to journalists at Toronto's city hall Wednesday. (Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

“I will always support my brother as the mayor of this city because I believe in his track record. Under his leadership, we have reined in out-of-control spending and turned this fiscal ship of this city around. We have successfully eliminated the budget gap. For a decade, Toronto relied on prior-year surpluses and one-time found money to balance its operating budgets. In 2013, that ended.

“Our 2013 budget was balanced for the first time ever without using any prior-year surplus. We are the only government, the only government, in North America to pass a budget that spends less money one year than it did the previous year.

“Because of our fiscal discipline, international bond rating agencies like Moody’s and DBRS have kept our credit rating strong even while they lowered the rating of the province of Ontario. Over the next 10 years, we are reducing our debt by $804 million that we inherited, while spending $1.2 billion more on infrastructure needs. We are investing $2.3 billion over 10 years to maintain our hard infrastructure.

“We have privatized garbage collection east of Yonge, saving the taxpayer $88 million while improving services to our residents. This mayor negotiated a historic labour deals, and I say historic, that’s never been done, and are helping us improve efficiencies that are helping us save hundreds of millions of dollars without a single labour disruption.

“We have changed the culture of entitlement and improved efficiencies and services for our residents.

“We have seen record years of development. We have more cranes in the air today, more than New York, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, combined. That is combined. We have 184 cranes in our city. We’ve had three consecutive years of job growth, that’s three consecutive years of job growth, and Toronto is currently seeing the highest employment numbers since 1990. I’ll repeat that. We’ve seen the highest employment numbers since 1990. We’ve almost created 40,000 jobs, have been created since Rob Ford took office.

“As mayor, Rob Ford has put more funding into arts than any other mayor. Toronto is a vibrant and beautiful city where people want to live, work and play. We are seeing tourism numbers in Toronto with over 9 million hotel rooms sold last year. Again, another record broken with 9 million hotel rooms sold last year.”

(Are you worried about tourism?)

“This mayor, this mayor is fighting for the little guy to keep taxes affordable and low. We have 136,000 households in Toronto that will get rent reductions this year because we reduced property taxes for their landlords last year. And we are holding the line on their taxes this year as well.

“We have come a long way in the past two years. We are turning the corner and we are now on the right path.”

(Why are you here?)

“All of this, of course, is overshadowed by the constant stream of accusations coming forward against this mayor. This situation reminds me of a story the Toronto Star, during the election, a story written based on credible sources that the mayor hit his football players. What could be worse than abusing an innocent child? It turned out that their credible sources was disgraced as a serial plagiarizer. The young man himself came forward saying these accusations were completely fabricated and false.

“Never, never has a Canadian politician or his family, has been targeted by the media this way. They zealously, and I say zealously, stalk my mother, my children. The media hides in the bushes at our cottage. They did this weekend, that my kids couldn’t even enjoy the weekend ’cause they were in the bushes taking videos of them, and harasses our family at home.

“They have shown that they have no regard, absolutely no regard, for what they are doing to our family, who should have no part of all of this. I am asking all of you today, please stop. Please stop harassing my children, please stop harassing my mother, please leave them out of this.

“People ask me, why did I get into politics? I got into politics to give back my time, donate my salary and do what I thought was right for Toronto. I never, ever expected that these were the rules of engagement, that we would go through this abuse and my family would suffer.

“To the folks at Gawker, what you are doing is disgusting and morally wrong. Giving away prizes to try to raise money for drug dealers and extortionists is disgraceful.

“When the mayor faces serious accusations, by no means will we be pressured by the Toronto Star to answer their questions on their time frame.”

(It’s not just the Toronto Star.)

“We spoke to our family, to our lawyers, before deciding how to proceed. If the mayor stopped and held a press conference every time the media made up a story about him, we would never have accomplished what we have. If the mayor wants to make a statement, his press secretary will notify the media. There is no reason for you to be staking out his house and following him around town.

“I also want to say that the story wrongfully generalizes and tarnishes the reputation of Toronto’s Somalian community, a hard-working community of good people, thousands of whom I represent in Etobicoke North.

“Lastly, I want to thank the thousands of supporters out there who believe in the job Mayor Ford and this administration is doing. Without your support, encouragement and kind words, this would be even more difficult than it already is. Folks, please remember, folks please remember that we will, we will continue fighting for the taxpayers and remember one thing: We’re down here to work for you.”

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